I'm delighted to be able to announce that I've managed to secure Wally's return to the UK on the 2nd July.

Fresh from his trip to Tech Ed EMEA, Wally Mead (Senior Program Manager for System Center Configuration Manager), is stopping off on his way back to Redmond to re-present some of his sessions from Tech Ed North America/ EMEA for those that were unable to make it. As well as a day rammed full of ConfigMgr 2012 content from one of THE authoritative sources on the product, 1E will also be presenting.

In case you missed it, Microsoft are hosting the UK Virtual Launch of System Center 2012 on Thursday.

Here's an extract of the info from the signup:

We have a very exciting wave of new product launches and announcements for the Microsoft Private Cloud in 2012 – starting with the release of System Center 2012, which allows you to manage your virtual, physical, and cloud environments from a single console, using common and consistent management experiences that provide full control across your existing datacentre investments.

We have also introduced a new edition line-up and simplified licensing for System Center 2012 to address both your server and client management needs – including Virtual Machine Manager, Operations Manager, Configuration Manager, Data Protection Manager, Service Manager, Orchestrator, Endpoint Protection, and App Controller.

System Center 2012 – UK Virtual Launch – These ½ day events will provide you with the best possible opportunity to learn about what’s new in System Center 2012 and our next step forward in the Microsoft Private Cloud vision, strategy and roadmap – with deep dive sessions on infrastructure management, service delivery & automation, and application management – which is an opportunity you won’t want to miss!

Well my 2012 got off to a fantastic start with the email from Microsoft telling me I've been re-awrded my ConfigMgr MVP for the 9th consecutive year for which I feel very honoured and humbled at the same time. I like to try to do "my bit" for the community and the product and it's so nice to be recognised for my efforts.

I'm already busy working on stuff for this year and hope that a couple of my long term planned dreams finally come to fruition but more on this when the time is right.

In the mean time I wish you and your loved one's a very Happy, Peaceful and Prosperous 2012 and many thanks once again for all of your help and efforts in helping me retain my MVP status - there's no point being a MVP unless you have a community to serve.

"Dear Cliff Hobbs,

Congratulations! We are pleased to present you with the 2012 Microsoft® MVP Award! This award is given to exceptional technical community leaders who actively share their high quality, real world expertise with others. We appreciate your outstanding contributions in System Center Configuration Manager technical communities during the past year."

If you are interested in testing Simplified Chinese or German please install the International build of Configuration Manger 2012 RC1. Be sure to install the same languages on your CAS and all primary sites.

On behalf of WMUG I just wanted to thank everyone for attending our event last Friday which was our biggest by far - over 140 of you took the time to attend.

I also want to thank everyone from Microsoft UK for making this possible and for hosting us for the day and of course the biggest thanks of all goes to our good friend Mr. Wally Mead.

We did record the event and will be publishing the video from the day when it's ready so keep your eyes open for this and Wally has also given me copies of his slide decks which I'll also get posted.

As I said in my introduction on the day, please register if you are interested in hearing about future events and please feel free to contact Rob, either of the David's or myself if you have any suggestions for topics you'd like to see covered at future events.

I thought some of you might be interested in the following webcast being run by Microsoft's User Group Support Services (UGSS):

TechTrax Workshop Training Series

Learn how you can manage updates, remove viruses, deploy software, and support your Windows PCs all from a web browser with no on-premise servers using Windows Intune. Microsoft Technical Evangelist David Tesar will dive into the technical capabilities of Windows Intune and explain how you can automatically own Windows 8 as soon as it is released.

There are moments that occur in all our lives that we never forget and today will be one of mine for when I heard the news that Steve Jobs had sadly passed away it really shook me up and it seems I'm not alone with colleagues entering the office as I type this asking if I've "heard the news". They don't need to say anymore, that's how big an impact he made.

We all have regrets in
life and one of mine is that I didn't make the switch from PC to Mac
earlier.One of Steve’s greatest
attributes was his visionary skill at coming up with products and then
convincing us we needed them and I thank him for this.

Take the iPhone.All my colleagues and friends had then but I
didn’t see the point and soldiered on with my Sony Ericcson.It wasn’t until I actually held an iPhone and
started to use it that I started to “get it”.

Same with my
MacBook.Sure I’ve known Apple products
since the 80s when I worked for an Apple dealer for a bit (and one of my first
questions I asked is how do I turn this thing on/ off and I also LOVED the Mac Classic sat on my desk as it was so different). But it was only after talking to other folks
who had MacBooks and were using them for their day job that I decided to do more digging and now I’ll never
go back to a PC (sure the journey with Mac OS hasn’t been smooth, but let’s
face it when I look back on my journey with Windows since Windows runtime for
Pagemaker Windows isn’t perfect).

Then the very device I
was watching when I heard the news – the iPad.We’ve all seen tablets come and go and I’ve tried a few in the past and
mostly hated them.But the iPad is
different and it took someone with vision and drive (and sure a lot of money as the sceptics didn’t see how something that been tried and
failed before could work again).The
only reason I bought one was to use as a portable external monitor.Now I’ve got one I hardy get to use it as
Lucas is either watching content on it or we’re looking at photos or browsing the
web on it as it’s just right for this kind of thing, something we’d only ever
done (not easily looking back) through a PC.

We’ve all got gadgets,
gizmos and labour saving devices that we’ve all gone out and bought after being
seduced by the sales pitch and most of them end up sitting in a cupboard (how
many of you have got a bread machine sitting in the cupboard or one of those
gravity fed car wash gizmos where you can supposedly wash your car with a
single bucket of water – never could get mine to work).

But how many Apple
devices have I got sat collecting dust? None.

So sorry I was late to
the party Steve but now I do “get it”.You really were a visionary and inspiration to me and the world is a
worse place for you not being here but hey what a legacy you’ve left behind,
something very few get to achieve in a life – changing the world.

God bless you and your
family and if I ever do make it to the Pearly gates I hope to see St. Peter using
an iPad.